Juan Soto

[Brewcrew82]

Hey, the Brewers are mentioned by an MLB executive as a "favorite" for Soto....I highly suspect that said executive just threw our name out there due to Stearns being our GM and our clear need for offensive upgrades. In a world where we didn't sign Yelich to a huge contract, this would raise my eyebrow at least a tad bit. But, since that world doesn't exist, I will instead laugh this off.

https://www.mlb.com/news/executives-weigh-in-on-juan-soto-trade-possibilities

Hypothetically, a competitive trade package from us would probably be something like this: Chourio, Frelick, Wiemer, Turang, Quero, Ashby. Even that might not be enough...

[wibadgers23]

Yeah it would be painful. Our top 10 would be nearly wiped out, including Chourio.

[KCBrewerfan34]

That’s a HARD pass if Chourio is in the deal. 

[KeithStone53151]

Ehh, they don't even have to have a criteria or reason for thinking that. These guys could easily just throw teams out there for whatever reason/purpose they choose. And of 17, only 1 said the Brewers. For this type of trade, as much as i believe the Brewers farm system is a bit underrated, it's at best a fringe top 10 system in the most optimistic possible lense. More likely it would rank in the late teens. We probably could put together a competitive package, but it would seriously gut the system. Chourio, Frelick, Small, probably Mitchell, probably a fair amount more. Because the prospect cost will be so high...a team in the top 5 of systems is more likely to have the pieces to get it done and not completely deplete the system. Also a team with money could incentivize the nationals by taking Patrick Corbin's albatross and offer less in prospect value(but still a lot). Dodgers, Cardinals, Yankees are the 3 teams that make the most sense to me unfortunately based on need/resources. You can never rule out the mariners though because Dipoto still exists and he's capable of literally anything. I would be surprised if anyone else pulled it off, even the padres because i don't think they can eat Corbin's contract so it would have to be all prospect value.

[KeithStone53151]

7 minutes ago, KCBrewerfan34 said:

That’s a HARD pass if Chourio is in the deal. 

Bruh, I would send 2 Chourio's for freaking Juan Soto. An mvp candidate for an 18 year old...c'mon man.

[homer]

I think the odds of this are infinitesimal but just for fun....

Chourio

Wiemer

Frelick

Antoine Kelly

Ethan Small

 

Is that enough?

[KeithStone53151]

5 minutes ago, homer said:

I think the odds of this are infinitesimal but just for fun....

Chourio

Wiemer

Frelick

Antoine Kelly

Ethan Small

 

Is that enough?

Probably not honestly. I feel like the Dodgers are going to offer like 80% of that prospect value and eat Corbin's contract...which is just way more value.

Edit - Actually it will be the Cardinals...but then they'll somehow fix Corbin and he'll pitch to a sub 3 ERA in September and October for maximum annoyance.

[KeithStone53151]

Lineup with Soto.

Yelich - DH/LF

Adames - SS

Soto - DH/LF

Renfroe - RF

Tellez - 1B

Urias - 3B

Narvaez - C

Taylor - CF

Wong - 2B

[monty57]

Soto is interesting because there probably isn't a team with a farm strong enough to match Soto's value, so the acquiring team would probably have to take a bad contract (Corbin) back in trade just to lessen the value of what Washington is sending.

Then, the acquiring team has to know going into it that he is going to play to free agency and then walk, so unless they plan on trading for him for one year and then trading him to someone else, they are going to empty out their farm and then lose Soto to free agency in two years, so it's really a "go all in" venture.

Soto is making $17.1M with two years of arby remaining, so he's probably due for something like $25M next year and $30M in 2024. Then throw in my earlier notion that the acquiring team may have to bring on another contract just to bring Soto's value down enough to make a suitable trade. Corbin is signed for $23.4M this year, $24.4M in 2023, and $35M in 2024. 

Even if we didn't have to add a second salary, we couldn't afford to add Soto's salary to our payroll. 

If somehow we were able to afford him, and somehow our prospects were enough for Washington to accept a deal, and somehow we wouldn't have to trade away multiple other players to avoid bankruptcy, we could have a pretty good team with the addition of Soto to the lineup. We would be the worst team in the history of baseball in 2025 after losing Soto, Woodruff, Burnes, Houser, Lauer and Adames and having no farm because they were all traded to Washington, but the party would be fun until the lights came on.

I just don't think it's realistic to think that we could add Soto to our payroll and still keep the other stars around, and it wouldn't make sense to trade for Soto if we needed to trade away our other good players in order to make payroll work.

[owbc]

There might be some truth to the "Stearns all-in" theory if the Brewers actually did this. 

The question I have is, would Soto get us over the hump and get us a World Series appearance? 

In my view, the current team is more than 1 bat away from being favorites to with the NL Pennant. In theory Soto gets you a shot at 2023 and 2024 as well, but financially we wouldn't be able to afford the pieces needed to plug holes around him. 

At the end of the day, I'd rather go shopping in free agency than rent Soto. Having to pay a big salary AND give up a ton of talent is a steep price to pay. 

 

[brewers888]

The only way this would work out is if the Brewers win the World Series in the next few seasons. Sorry but I am not a believer in burning down the house for one guy even one as good as Soto is. If he had 4 years of control I might think differently but I am not in favor of seeing this team lose 110 games in a few years when Burnes, Woodruff, and Soto if we acquired him leave in free agency. 

[brewers888]

This is a deal for a big market team that can afford to keep Soto long term and doesn't really have the dire need for cheap talent as a team like the Brewers do.

[wibadgers23]

I agree with mostly everybody here. It makes a lot more sense for an organization like the Dodgers or Yankees to trade for Soto since they actually have a shot at resigning him. The Brewers would be in for a long and painful rebuild come 2025.

[monty57]

Just now, owbc said:

There might be some truth to the "Stearns all-in" theory if the Brewers actually did this. 

The question I have is, would Soto get us over the hump and get us a World Series appearance? 

In my view, the current team is more than 1 bat away from being favorites to with the NL Pennant. In theory Soto gets you a shot at 2023 and 2024 as well, but financially we wouldn't be able to afford the pieces needed plug holes around him. 

At the end of the day, I'd rather go shopping in free agency than rent Soto. Having to pay a big salary AND give up a ton of talent is a steep price to pay. 

 

To add to your point, Fangraphs has the Brewers with a 5.1% chance to win the World Series. The Dodgers and Astros are the current favorites at 16%, followed by the Mets at 13.9%. Adding Soto would up our odds, but we would still be underdogs in the playoffs, and would probably still end up playing as the #3 seed, which means we'd be in the Wild Card games.

We would almost certainly have to trade some good players prior to next year just to make payroll, and wouldn't have any money to fill any other holes in the roster, so we probably wouldn't be better going into next year than we were going into this year. There is no way that we could afford to go into 2024 with Soto, Yelich and anyone else who would make any money.

So, if we were to do this, I think we'd be looking at trading the farm for a "rental" for the season, and would be trading him away this offseason to replenish what we traded away. That would be the only way financially it would make any sense. Attanasio might be willing to eat $8-9M this year to increase the odds of winning it all (and getting some money from the fan fervor of adding Soto), but I don't think he'll go into next year with an opening day payroll of something like the $160-$170M it would take to retain our stars and field a team around them.

[KeithStone53151]

34 minutes ago, owbc said:

In my view, the current team is more than 1 bat away from being favorites to with the NL Pennant. In theory Soto gets you a shot at 2023 and 2024 as well, but financially we wouldn't be able to afford the pieces needed to plug holes around him. 

 

Nah, if we were to trade for Soto...we'd also need to trade for a guy like Bryan Reynolds, and then probably add another good reliever to be in the mix for 7th inning duties. We do those 3 things, We're probably right there with anybody in WS odds...but Juan Soto alone is not enough.

[wibadgers23]

5 minutes ago, KeithStone53151 said:

Nah, if we were to trade for Soto...we'd also need to trade for a guy like Bryan Reynolds, and then probably add another good reliever to be in the mix for 7th inning duties. We do those 3 things, We're probably right there with anybody in WS odds...but Juan Soto alone is not enough.

Yeah I tend to agree. Now, if we had 2018/2019 Yelich, it might be a different story but those days are long gone.

[Jopal78]

40 minutes ago, brewers888 said:

The only way this would work out is if the Brewers win the World Series in the next few seasons. Sorry but I am not a believer in burning down the house for one guy even one as good as Soto is. If he had 4 years of control I might think differently but I am not in favor of seeing this team lose 110 games in a few years when Burnes, Woodruff, and Soto if we acquired him leave in free agency. 

Sure, but Soto is a top 5 hitter in MLB and would be a great fit for Milwaukee. Take the worst bat out of the Brewers lineup and replace it with one of the best in the game, and their lineup suddenly looks a lot more formidable. Moreover, they would have the ability to in essence "run it back" next year, and again in 2024. 

2024 is the end of the road for the current group anyways, if the wheels fall off during the summer of 2024 they can always restock their system when they trade Soto, Woodruff, Burnes before they exit as free agents. 

As for the talent required to get Soto, rightfully so it will likely be 4-5 really talented minor leaguers. Just remember, the Marlins ended up getting nothing in return for Yelich. That's why they call them "prospects" the 'possibility' they might become a major league player, and keep in mind that the odds are heavily stacked against any of those aforementioned names becoming a Top 5 player like Juan Soto.

I also don't think the Nationals will try to package Patrick Corbin with Soto, it would kill the amount of talent coming back to them, and defeat the purpose of trading Soto while he has years of team control remaining. 

All that being said, I don't think the Brewers will trade for Soto, but I would hope prospect love is not the reason stopping them from adding one of the game's superstars for the next 2.5 seasons. 

 

[phnxcrew]

I was thinking of this and it really comes down to if Mark A. Is getting sick of the yearly competitive but never really a threat scenario.  Could we put together a package for bell, Corbin & soto taking 2/3 of Corbin’s contract? You’d definitely trade soto after 2023 to recoup some value and be operating in the far red next year, but it might be worth it IMO for two legitimate shots.

brewers get;

soto, bell, Corbin and 20 million.

nationals get; chourio, frelick, small, Kelly, Turang, hiura, tellez.  You could even include a Taylor as a “player to be named later” or a perez if it’s still too light on potential high end talent.  the brewers have a rare combination now of high end prospects, major league ready prospects and current MLB players that may still develop into above average major leaguers (Taylor, hiura, tellez) that an organization that has developed a ton of hitting can fix.

it’s a long shot, but could happen if they want it bad enough IMO.  

[SRB]

I have no illusions that it will actually happen, but I would also have zero hesitation about going 100% all in to land Soto if I were Stearns. We are looking at the most fortuitous window in franchise history in that we have lucked into having 3+ elite pitchers under team control all at the same time. We're never going to get a better window, and offense is clearly the problem.

This offer would probably be contingent on the Nationals thinking they can fix Hiura's strikeouts, but here's a proposal that is somewhat "realistic" based on things like that online trade simulator, yet without giving up any of our major league pitching:

Brewers get:

• OF Juan Soto
• SP Patrick Corbin

Nationals get:

• 3B/SS Luis Urias
• 2B/DH Keston Hiura
• OF Jackson Chourio
• OF Joey Wiemer
• SS Brice Turang

I would do that deal with zero hesitation. I don't even really mind adding Corbin, since I think he's overvalued but still has something left in the tank as a change-of-scene candidate. It would create a partial hole at 3B vs. RHP but we could plug that in the off-season with a free agent like Joey Wendle.

 

[SRB]

Or if you really want to get creative, we could include Hader as part of the deal and bring in a third team to send some elite prospects to Washington for him. Williams takes over as closer.

[wallus]

We would have to do something like Chourio, Wiemer, Turang, Small, and Mitchell which still probably isn't in the ballpark. I would easily do that obviously. 

 

You don't see trades where teams give up me for 5 guys for one or at least I don't remember it.

[markedman5]

Lol …….no chance.

[brewmann04]

I am curious how many years will Soto be here if traded because the Crew would not be able to sign him long Term, then also you need to sign at least one of the big two starter in Corbin or Woody. So then will the Brewers be forced to trade Soto down the road for Prospect?

[endaround]

Soto has something like $175 million in excess value.  Fangraphs has the entire Brewer minor league system valued at $158 million,  so this would really be selling the farm. Soto is worth 3 FV50 and higher prospects; the Brewers have one. 

[KeithStone53151]

14 hours ago, SRB said:

Brewers get:

• OF Juan Soto
• SP Patrick Corbin

Nationals get:

• 3B/SS Luis Urias
• 2B/DH Keston Hiura
• OF Jackson Chourio
• OF Joey Wiemer
• SS Brice Turang

 

This is probably the closest offer from a value perspective that I've seen so far. I actually think the Nationals would seriously consider this offer. We'd create a hole in the infield but we could plug that with another move. The nationals could very well take young major leaguers with 4+ years of team control as they have $ to try and buy their way back into contention.